SOURCE: A review of The Virgin's Brand, in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 1698, August 16, 1934, p. 564.

In the following essay, the critic describes The Virgin's Brand as a mirror of Europe's troubled political milieu in the mid-193Os.

The publishers describe The Virgin's Brad … as "a story of great dramatic tension, of adventure and mystery and withal a love story of moving intensity." Up to a point this is a just description (except that the love story, however moving and intense, is a somewhat irrelevant intrusion presumably introduced as a sop to public demand). The author, whose reputation on the Continent is considerable, is a very capable story-teller, with a gift for making the strange events he narrates sound probable and for creating the atmosphere of terror, mystery and suspense appropriate to these events. We miss the whole point of the fantasy, however, unless we understand it as a...